Continental baggage, cargo workers join Teamsters

Lazaro Pastor, left, and Gwendolyn Henry, both customer service agents at Continental Airlines, cheer when they hear the vote count Friday at the local Teamsters union hall.

Lazaro Pastor, left, and Gwendolyn Henry, both customer service agents at Continental Airlines, cheer when they hear the vote count Friday at the local Teamsters union hall.

Photo: Eric Kayne:, For The Chronicle

Photo: Eric Kayne:, For The Chronicle

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Lazaro Pastor, left, and Gwendolyn Henry, both customer service agents at Continental Airlines, cheer when they hear the vote count Friday at the local Teamsters union hall.

Lazaro Pastor, left, and Gwendolyn Henry, both customer service agents at Continental Airlines, cheer when they hear the vote count Friday at the local Teamsters union hall.

Photo: Eric Kayne:, For The Chronicle

Continental baggage, cargo workers join Teamsters

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Houston workers have scored little in the way of union-organizing victories during the past couple of years, but they got one Friday when 7,600 Continental Airlines fleet service workers — including 2,800 in the Houston area — became Teamsters.

An explosive cheer erupted from about 50 ramp workers and union officials gathered at the headquarters of Teamsters Union Local 19 when they learned the results of their nationwide vote, moments after the National Mediation Board completed the electronic vote tally at 1 p.m. The union got 4,129 votes, which represents about 55 percent of the employees.

Haynes, dressed in blue Continental overalls, was shaking. She said she hasn't been able to sleep because she's been so anxious.

The vote tally originally was planned for Monday but was delayed because of the snowstorm that shut down the federal government.

It was a big victory for organized labor which has tried — and failed — five times during the past 13 years to organize the Continental Airlines ramp workers. They join the mechanics at Continental Airlines who are already represented by the Teamsters.

‘My final run'

“This was my final run, win or lose,” said a relieved Jorge Bonilla, lead ramp agent, who's been with Continental for 12 years and was one of the union organizers. “If the Teamsters couldn't do it, no one could do it.”

Mike Bonds, Continental's senior vice president of human resources and labor relations, said in a statement Friday that the Houston-based airline respects the decision. “Regardless of whether co-workers are union or non-union,” Bonds said, “we're focused on achieving and maintaining profitability and preserving our long-standing culture of working together.”

Continental asked for employee concessions in 2004 and some of the ramp workers believe they ended up giving more than their share.

Bonilla and some of his co-workers asked the Teamsters to step in after the union successfully signed up 9,000 United Airlines mechanics in 2008. The union agreed and made a massive investment in time and resources to win the Continental campaign.

The union launched a get-out-the-vote blitz last month, sending out hundreds of members to 24 cities to talk to the ramp workers.

Most of the new Teamsters work at hubs including Houston, Cleveland and Newark, N.J. Previous organizing efforts had focused more on those cities and not so much on outlying areas. But this time, the union sought out as many workers as it could in smaller locations.

The effort was made more difficult by federal labor rules. The Railway Labor Act, the 1926 legislation that governs transportation workers, requires a union to obtain a majority of votes of all the eligible voters in the bargaining unit. If someone doesn't vote, it's tallied as a no.

Welcome by pilots

“We welcome them to the ranks of union employees at Continental, wish them much success at the bargaining table and look forward to working with them on mutual areas of interest,” Pierce said.

Robert Rasch, president and business manager of Teamsters Local 19 and a Continental mechanic, said the first steps toward negotiating the new members' contract will begin next week.

“We're finally going to get the respect, the dignity and the power that we deserve out there on the ramp,” said Reginald Robinson, a Continental ramp agent.

Rasch said under the federal labor law that covers the transportation industry, all the fleet service workers must either join the Teamsters or pay equivalent contract service fees. That rule supersedes the Texas Right-to-Work Act, which forbids mandatory union membership.

Wages for the ramp workers start at about $10 an hour, said Chris Moore, chairman of the Teamsters Aviation Mechanics Coalition, which represents 18,500 mechanics at 10 airlines. After 10 years, lead agents earn a little more than $21 an hour, he said.

About half work full time, said Moore, who is on union leave from his aircraft mechanic job with Continental. The part-timers include many firefighters and police officers who take on extra work at the airline specifically for the flight benefits, he said.

The vote is a big gain for labor in Houston, said Richard Shaw, secretary-treasurer for the Harris County AFL-CIO, because most of Continental's major worker groups now are represented by unions.

“When one segment of the company isn't represented, it tends to weaken the other unions,” Shaw said.